In my supermarket they are mandatory. You get your fruit and you put them in a scale which prints out an sticker with the weight, pricing and barcode, which is what os scanned at checkout.
This would be all avoided if they had scales at checkout and the clerk used them (which would also reduce fraud) but of course is cheaper having way less staff.
The problem is that people ever bought enough gold to cover costs.
Admitedly, its also reddit problem that they went from hosting links/text to also hosting images/video which is a completely different (and more expensive) beast.